Merging or Mapping Locations is essential to order fulfillments and inventory syncing correctly.
In this article
Overview
When you add an integration to Pipe17, we create "locations" that you must use to ensure fulfillments and inventory sync correctly. Most integrations will create a location, and these locations must be mapped together, we call this "merging".
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Let's take an example:
To enable Pipe17 inventory and fulfillments to flow correctly you need to merge locations in Pipe17 as shown below.
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So as pictured above, you merge US 3PL into MCF US and Canada into MCF CA.
We recommend you Mark Inactive any locations you do not need in case to make it easier to know which locations to pick in filters and actions in the Pipe17 portal.
Merge locations
When you have many fulfillment locations for inventory and selling, you need to "merge" them together if they represent the same location across different systems.
| Certain Pipe17 connectors also support aggregating all of your 3PL stock locations into a single e-commerce selling location. To read more about this option, review the settings available in your specific selling channel connector in the Pipe17 portal, or review the setup guide for that connector in our Connectors page. |
Once you know which two locations need to be associated together, use the steps below to link them:
- Navigate to Inventory > Locations in the Pipe17 portal.
- Click on the selling channel location that you want to associate to a 3PL location. In this example, this is the "US 3PL" location. Note: Make sure you have the selling channel location, not the 3PL location. A quick way to tell is that the "3PL Integration" field will be blank for a selling channel location.
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Take note of the entry in the table at the bottom of the page, called "External Locations". This is the ID of the location, and it will be useful for confirming you have correctly associated this location with the right 3PL location.
- Now, you can link this to the corresponding 3PL location by clicking on the green "Merge to Another Location" button at the top of the page. Then, pick the 3PL location that should be associated to this selling channel location. In the example above, this would be "MCF - US".
- Wait a few seconds, then the page should update and the location status will change to "Merged". The location you chose to merge to will be shown as a link as in the screenshot below.
- Save your changes.
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Now, you can confirm the right locations are linked by clicking on the blue link to the "MCF - US" location. On this page, you should see a new line in the "External Locations" section that contains the ID of the selling channel location you noted in step 3.
Troubleshooting
I merged the wrong location, how can I undo this?
- Click "Merge to another location" again, and this time pick the correct 3PL location. Then save.
- Now, head into the previous 3PL location (the one you incorrectly mapped). Under the "External Locations", you will see a line with the selling channel location ID. Since this link is incorrect, you can use the trash can icon to remove it so that the selling channel location is only linked to one 3PL location.
My locations are merged, but inventory from my 3PL is not syncing to my selling channel.
- Open the fulfillment location and make sure every ecommerce integration that can generate orders has a location in the external integration list.
- Make sure inventory sync is enabled for your selling channel integration. Visit our Connectors page for connector-specific guides.
- Inventory syncs in Pipe17 are generally change-based, meaning inventory will sync to your selling channel the next time there is an inventory change received from your 3PL. These changes happen anywhere from hourly to daily, depending on your specific 3PL. To ensure your locations are correctly merged in the meantime, you can test by manually updating inventory for a SKU and watch the changes sync over to your selling channel.